You hate to see this from a trusted, respected brand. Salsa in cooperation with the Consumer Product Safety Commission is recalling Taiwan-made stems, the failure one of which resulted in a broken wrist. Three reports of breakage were investigated.

Sold aftermarket and on Salsa bikes

CromotoStem has the full list of affected stems. About 8,600 units were produced.

The second mountain bike I owned, one of those Rockhopper hardtails with the tan elastomer forks, had a bad set of bars that I snapped right off coming down a slope. Fortunately I was able, one-handed, to maintain control of the bike. I took the bars back to Elliott Bay Bicycles, where Bill Davidson examined them and said they were the result of a bad casting. Specialized replaced the bars but I also wrote a letter advocating a recall. Within a few months the whole batch got recalled.

Although I’ve suffered a lot of breakage over the years, mostly on frames, that was by far the scariest. It disturbs me that Salsa quality control did not catch these stems, but such is the state of global manufacturing these days.